Palette blog

I’ve been putting off this post for as long as I could because I didn’t want to add to the growing list of “this is how we’re dealing with the corona virus pandemic.” But it’s time to let you know where things stand.

I traveled out of state, with my kids, to surprise my mother for her 85th birthday. When we left Alaska, just over a week ago, the situation was very different from what it is today. In fact, over the weekend, things changed so exponentially fast, I was worried we wouldn’t be able to fly home. But we did, and arrived home last night about midnight.

While we weren’t in a “hot spot”, we did travel, and let’s face it, just air travel on a good day can be worrisome, as far as germs are concerned. Our flight back to Alaska was quite full. Given how easily this virus spreads, and how people can be carriers without having symptoms, I’d rather approach things as if my kids and I are infected, and err on the side of caution. None of us wants to pass anything on to anyone else. The health authorities don’t necessarily warn us to self-quarantine for 14 days, but they do recommend taking our temperature 2 times a day for the 14 days. Since things are changing so quickly, I’m thinking they will implement 14 day self-quarantine for ALL travelers soon, regardless of where you’re traveling from. I’d rather not take any chances and just be a step ahead in this case.

For this reason, I’m postponing the one class I had scheduled (Alcohol ink flowers on Mar. 21st) and will not be scheduling any new classes till things are more stable. This is definitely going to be hard on me, financially, as my other “job” is substitute teaching - subs don’t get paid time off or anything for doing online classes, of course, because we don’t do any of that. If I can figure out how to set up a camera to catch the action, I will maybe do some online videos just for fun... but any tips will be much appreciated! I can also do custom paintings for you during this time, which not only would help a lot, but I would enjoy the distractions!

Please stay safe out there, and remember, all these closures and restrictions are to slow down the spread. Please do your part to help the effort - keep yourself healthy by maintaining distance from other people, cancelling social events, keeping shopping to a minimum, and stay home if you start feeling sick! I’ve seen far too many people that say “I don’t care if I get sick!” Which is great, but please don’t spread this around to people who could suffer complications and die from this.